Congratulations once again on your victory. I’m thrilled for you and Tammy.

Your neighbors are proud of you

It has been an exciting time for everyone on our small street. We were delighted to display our “Phil Murphy for Governor” lawn signs and cheer you on during your campaign and at your inaugural ball.

Thank you for all you’ve done to make us feel special and part of your journey. Fifteen years have passed since you graciously hosted an intimate party welcoming my family to the neighborhood. It was a beautiful gesture and especially heartwarming to learn that our children are the same ages and Tammy and I were high school classmates. It’s hard to believe the last of our kids are starting high school in the fall.

You made an impression on me then and you’ll make the same on New Jerseyans during your tenure as governor.

Yes! So many parents are with you. This is the key message of my letter. Special interests have captured our legislature and are diverting scarce resources and attention away from a massive public health crisis impacting New Jersey families. This isn’t just about the devastating opportunity cost of our longstanding failure to address this plight. These special interests are now making a calamitous situation so much worse.

We both left Wall Street to solve real problems

You and I both come from Wall Street. When you were running Goldman Sachs Asia, I was Head of Corporate Marketing for Putnam Investments. We were on our respective companies’ Management Committees. We speak the same language and hold similar expectations for the level of analytic rigor underpinning executive decisions.

Our subsequent paths have been different but we both care about making the world a better place. I appreciated Tammy’s acknowledgement of my longstanding advocacy in support of parental rights and informed consent, and my concern about mandatory medicine.

You’re in a position to make a big impact in New Jersey, Phil.

There is a vitally urgent matter that I urge you to prioritize now. It is a massive opportunity for a courageous and intelligent leader. It is also a ticking time bomb whose collateral damage will be far greater than the detritus surrounding the over 100,000 New Jersey families whose lives have already been shattered.

One in 22 New Jersey boys has autism, Phil. And 1 in 34 of our state’s children. It is the highest in the nation.

If something was sneaking into 1 out of every 22 New Jersey homes and stealing our boys, wouldn’t we be in the streets with panic and outrage, demanding answers and doing whatever we could to put an end to it?

This is a stunning indictment of our state and federal public health institutions.

It is all the more so because everyone watched it climb, year after year for decades now, an inexorable train wreck imploding before our eyes.

New Jersey leads the autism epidemic.

It’s even worse, CDC reporting has 12 year lag

To make matters worse, this new data is really old data. The CDC analysis is based on children who were born in 2006 and aged 8 years in 2014.

What about our New Jersey babies born this year?

We won’t know about the autism incidence affecting today’s newborns until 2030.

How is this possible?

Under the CDC’s current Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network (ADDM) practices, data collection for children born in 2018 will occur in 2026, when they are 8 years old. It will take the CDC four years to compile and analyze the data; write and revise the report; submit it for successive levels of management review; and then finally schedule it for release in the MMWR.

So, the CDC’s April 2018 report based on children born in 2006, who are age 8 in 2014, is entitled: “Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children Aged 8 Years — Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 11 Sites, United States, 2014.”

There’s an unacknowledged lag embedded in the data that keeps us perilously out of touch with the current reality.

It means that this very bad news is almost certainly a lot worse and any sense of urgency we muster amidst inconvenient political realities is likely to be grievously too little too late.

Listen to NJ’s very concerned CDC study chief

The CDC did not push this big story into the spotlight. Not one CDC official appeared on mainstream media to tell Americans the bad news and the outlets didn’t apply pressure. A quiet CDC press release said the increase was “slight,” a soft-pedaled message echoed by the American Academy of Pediatricsand others that did not accurately reflect the significance of the findings.

This isn’t my spin. Listen to New Jersey’s own Walter M. Zahorodny, PhD. Dr. Zahorodny is in charge of New Jersey’s autism analysis for the CDC. He is Director of the New Jersey Autism Study. He has been involved with the CDC’s ADDM study since the very beginning. Dr. Zahorodny is also Associate Professor, Pediatrics Department, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

Dr. Zahorodny says that New Jersey has the most developed and rigorous autism surveillance infrastructure in the US. Since the CDC ADDM study’s inception in 2000, some states have been added and removed, and geographic regions have been altered.

But not New Jersey.

New Jersey has been included and consistent and rigorous from the beginning. For this reason and because of the gravity of the findings, he says everyone should be paying close attention to New Jersey’s autism numbers.

Let’s stop the deflection, the increase is real

Dr. Zahorodny wants us all to understand that New Jersey’s sky high autism numbers are deeply concerning and must not be downplayed. The crisis is genuine. It is imperative that we stop giving ourselves permission to look away.

These are the key messages that Dr. Zahorodny delivers in his video:

#1: Can’t be explained away by “better autism awareness”

When we look at the average age at first autism diagnosis across the US, this has not changed in the last 14 years. The age at diagnosis has remained stable at about 53 months (4 years, 5 months old) throughout the entire study period.

He says, if autism prevalence was being impacted by overall greater awareness, we would expect the age at diagnosis to decrease over the same time period.

It hasn’t.

#2: Can’t be explained away by “changed diagnostic criteria”

Dr. Zahorodny is also dismayed because the media persist in reporting that rising autism prevalence is due to a changed definition of autism (and greater awareness). This isn’t true. The overall ADDM project — and New Jersey’s own part in it — has only ever used one definition of autism, as provided by the DSM-IV.

In his words: “Zero is due to changing diagnosis.”

#3: Can’t be disregarded due to “changed research methodology”

CDC says we cannot draw conclusions regarding autism — whether there is a legitimate increase (i.e., is there even a crisis?) — because the research methodology has changed.

Dr. Zahorodny asserts, point blank, that there has been no change in research methodology.

There has been a change in the number and geographic distribution of certain ADDM states. Plus, some states changed the region in which they conducted surveillance. This compels us to focus more on the states that have maintained consistency in the definition of their geographic region.

Like New Jersey.

#4: All state autism rates are likely underestimated, even NJ’s

There’s a big difference in autism prevalence across ADDM states. According to Dr. Zahorodny, it’s not that autism varies so dramatically across the US. It’s that our ability to capture all individuals with autism is uneven and imperfect. All ADDM states face some constraints in accurately capturing data; some more than others.

Dr. Zahorodny says autism prevalence is likely to be in the 3%+ range or even higher in the major metropolitan areas across the US. And yes, in New Jersey, even at 1 in 34 children and 1 in 22 boys born in 2006, we may still be underestimating.

#5: Severely impaired children are driving the increase

Think the numbers are being driven by high numbers of quirky but high functioning children? Think again. Dr. Zahorodny says the increase in autism prevalence is being “pushed quite significantly” by children with severe levels of impairment.

While we are getting better at identifying and diagnosing children who are less severely affected, this isn’t what’s driving the higher numbers. Autism is increasing across the board and across all subtypes. The prevalence numbers are driven by those who are most seriously impacted. It is a false and dangerous assumption that the increase is being uniquely propelled by ever larger numbers of mildly idiosyncratic but societally functional individuals.

These acutely impaired children are receiving a diagnosis of autism more quickly. When the CDC study team first started doing surveillance, Dr. Zahorodny said they looked at how long it took from the age of a child’s first appointment with a professional (i.e., neurologist, developmental pediatrician) to the age at receipt of the first autism diagnosis. It used to be one year. It’s now seven months.

There’s greater familiarity with autism because higher numbers of disabled children with autism are entering doctors’ offices. This is prompting the doctors to diagnose sooner.

#6: Media silence is concerning

Dr. Zahorodny says the mainstream media’s failure to cover the latest autism prevalence numbers is very hard to justify or explain.

Over the past 14 years, we’ve been reporting about skyrocketing autism rates. He surmises that, without an understanding of why the increase is occurring, we’ve come to a point where there’s very little to report.

But that’s not exactly true, is it? The continually increasing and unacceptably high rates are, unto themselves, major news. As is the fact that we still don’t know why.

New Jersey can do so much better for its families.

#7: Failure to act similarly does not absolve CDC… or you

Why hasn’t the CDC said anything? The CDC has the responsibility to provide accurate autism prevalence estimates. Dr. Zahorodny observed the CDC must be concerned that these high autism rates would provoke unease, anxiety, and panic, even. “If the CDC had an explanation, I think they would be more forthcoming in declaring the new findings…”

Neither the mainstream media nor the CDC nor anyone from any state program or office approached Dr. Zahorodny requesting an interview or asking any questions about his analysis. Dr. Zahorodny shared the following with me and Heidi Roger:

No one from any state program/office approached me or asked any questions, subsequent to the release of findings. However, I made special presentations to the NJ DOH and DOE on the eve of the publication. Members of those two audiences asked questions and I responded. I thought there would be contact from the Governor’s Office before or after or from some politicians interested in proposing autism-specific legislation in light of the findings, but there was not. I thought there would be questions about what could or should happen next or to ‘predict’ future autism rates, but there were not… Also no contact or questions from the Governor’s Council for Autism.

Phil, please contact Dr. Zahorodny.

#8: No progress until we admit the true scope of the problem

Dr. Zahorodny’s observations are on point and chilling:

If we can’t acknowledge the magnitude of the problem, if we won’t call it a crisis and commit resources to addressing it, how could we hope to make progress?

How will we be able to plan for the future in our schools and communities and provide the right services to affected children and their families?

How will we fund the right research that might lead to answers for why this is occurring?

Every 8 year-old with autism will become an adolescent and subsequently an adult with autism. It makes a lot of sense to be ready for that.

In Dr. Zahorodny’s opinion, the school systems are very frank and clear about the surge in autism. They’ve had to deal with it firsthand. And the practicing clinicians are also not confused about whether there’s a true increase.

He earnestly states: “Let’s hope that everyone gets the message.”

What Dr. Zahorodny says must happen next?

Dr. Zahorodny says there are three steps that must be taken. I add clarifying comments beneath each.

#1: Enact universal autism screening at 18, 24, and 30 months

Phenylketonuria (PKU) only affects 1 in 10,000 to 15,000 newborns, yet we automatically screen all babies for it and similarly rare diseases.

Autism affects 1 in 59 US children and 1 in 37 US boys and 1 in 22 NJ boys. Dr. Zahorodny already told us these numbers are likely underestimated. They’re also dated because they are based on children born in 2006. Today’s babies are almost surely born into a world with much more autism than we are able to grasp with today’s mindset and data. So it’s not as easy as a blood test but we are equal to the task. Let’s find out how much, really.

#2: Increase research into environmental risk factors for autism

We can’t explain away these alarming numbers due to greater awareness, changing definitions, or inconsistent research methodologies. What’s causing all this autism?

Let’s take a closer look at NIH’s 2017 spending on Research, Condition, and Disease Categories (RCDC). How much did we devote to autism research? A mere $245 million, the lion’s share of which was allocated to screening, genetics, brain mechanisms, communication skills, behavioral interventions. A very small amount was spent on environmental epidemiology (excluding vaccines).

In stark contrast to the $245 million committed for autism, we apportioned:

If we are frank, it is clear that an earnest and unvarnished inquiry into autism causation is not our priority. NIH research funding is aligned with projects that have strong commercial (pharmaceutical) applications. It also reflects our fear of infectious diseases, with a massive prioritization on vaccine development. But not on safety studies for these vaccines.

Dr. Zahorodny urges us to allow an exclusion in the federal education laws to permit surveillance as we’re doing for autism in ADDM network. Some states have never been permitted to look at information and education records because they choose to interpret the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in a restrictive manner.

If our intention is to accurately estimate autism prevalence using this type of methodology, there has to be a public health exclusion that allows researchers to look at education records, just as there’s an exclusion for public health surveillance in the health domain with HIPAA.

NJ’s increased autism funding is not enough

Phil, thank you for increasing funding for autism services in your proposed 2019 New Jersey state budget announced on March 13. You allocated a $8.9 million for youth and $19.8 million for adults.

If you had had benefit of the “new” CDC prevalence numbers released in April, would you have given more? It’s a hard question, I know. Where will the money come from? Don’t get me started on our property taxes.

I will say what everyone already knows. It’s not enough. It has never been enough. And worst of all, we aren’t keeping up.

Autism is a dire and often catastrophic disorder that is profoundly debilitating, medically injurious, socially isolating, and financially devastating for families.

If we don’t undertake a clear-eyed, “no sacred cows” commitment to causation, it will never be enough.

If New Jersey waits for the feds to figure this out, we’re going to be waiting a very long time. It will take us under first. There can be no more waiting.

We start by admitting we have a problem

The time is now.

The media and public health silence about autism is something that you, Phil, must take the initiative to highlight. It’s a New Jersey issue. The first step to real progress is admitting we have a huge problem. You’ve been a corporate, community, and political leader for decades. I’m not telling you anything you do not know. No one likes to bring attention to problems that do not appear to have solutions. But this is what leaders do.

If you did, I am certain that you would be flooded with an overwhelmingly grateful parent constituency whose hearts and political support would fly to you with astonishing speed.

Timing is everything. It can bring unexpected benefits and responsibilities. A public offering can be a windfall. A crisis can be an opportunity. The failure to act on an inherited catastrophe can be unforgivable.

We’re talking about our children. There’s an epic amount of suffering. This issue is life and death and survival for families.

It isn’t simply the humanitarian thing to do. It’s also the smart thing to do. It could help propel a savvy statesman to national prominence and seal his legacy.

It’s all you, Phil. New Jersey is Ground Zero

Our country needs to face its autism problem and it needs to happen in New Jersey. The nation will watch us closely.

We have the highest concentration of autism.

We have the highest concentration of US and worldwide pharmaceutical company headquarters, more than anywhere else in the world.

There is a shocking void of political leadership on this most intimate and shameful of public health crises.

As a devoted father of four and chief executive of the land that is Ground Zero for the autism epidemic, the parents of New Jersey implore you to take a stand.

Our “vaccine problem” is the 800 lb gorilla

Our government says there is no vaccine-autism link. Our government also has no idea what is causing autism.

It devotes no meaningful resources to vaccine causation research.

It ignores the eerily similar experiences of hundreds of thousands of parents whose children were never the same (and then diagnosed with autism) following childhood vaccines.

It recommends 70+ doses of 16 vaccines, a 3-fold increase in 25 years and a 5-fold increase since you and I were born, Phil.

It funds state health departments that mandate vaccines for day care and school.

It granted extraordinary liability protection to vaccine makers in 1986 paving the way for:

the exponential increase in required childhood vaccines

a $17 billion US vaccine market with double digit growth

all this during the same time that autism catapulted from a rare disorder to 1 in 22 New Jersey boys, a trend also marked by double digit growth rates.

Mandatory vaccination discriminates against our most vulnerable families without access to support and information about exemptions, and without resources to homeschool or move. Most parents with one vaccine-injured child have no options for the rest of their children. The CDC and state health departments do not recognize “sibling vaccine injury” as a legitimate contraindication to vaccination.

ACLU-CA already voiced its objection to CA SB277. The move to abridge and then eliminate vaccine exemptions in the absence of compelling state interest is a violation of our civil, parental, religious, and human rights.

The autism-vaccine issue remains the 800 pound gorilla in the room hidden under a handkerchief. It’s on everyone’s minds and no one wants to say anything for fear of being marginalized. Political correctness is killing us.

I have deep compassion for the many who do not have a voice. Join me in speaking out for New Jersey’s autism families.

No science backing vaccines as administered

As a former Bain consultant with an Amazon bestsellingvaccine book (and a second book on its way) who spent over 10,000 hours studying this issue and interviewing experts as if my children’s lives depended on it — because they did — I can tell you that there is both ample peer-reviewed scientific research and substantial clinical experience raising grave questions about the wisdom of the US childhood vaccine program and offering insights into biological mechanisms of vaccine injury and the link to the devastating chronic, autoimmune, and neurodevelopmental disorders plaguing our children. Yes, autism. Also yes, ADHD, allergies, asthma, arthritis, and that’s just the A’s. There’s a lot more.

We do not need to prove that vaccines cause autism in order to take action. We merely need to admit that we never proved that vaccines, in the way they are administered, are safe. The Institute of Medicine already told us this. Repeatedly.

We have never rigorously evaluated, using the standards of modern, evidence-based medicine, the longitudinal health outcomes of fully unvaccinated children versus fully vaccinated children who are in receipt of vaccines as indicated by our government starting on the day of birth and then continuing with multiple vaccines at their 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 12th, 15th, 18th, and 24th month well visits plus annual flu shots starting at 6 months of age plus the kindergarten shots, the 6th grade shots, and a growing number of teen shots for a staggering total of over 70 doses of 16 vaccines.

Let’s please not debate the ethical merits of such a study right now. Let’s just, for the moment, admit that it’s never been done so we do not know.

Parents deserve to know that much.

If our government feels compelled to recommend vaccines for public health reasons, so be it. But it must give parents informed consent: Information on the risks and benefits plus the opportunity to consent or decline. This happens to be the international human rights standard (see Article 6) and a requirement in the practice of ethical medicine.

This is not what’s happening, however.

“There is no federal requirement for informed consent related to immunization,” says the CDC. See CDC site and screenshot.

Protect parental rights, leave exemptions alone

April was a doubly taxing month for parents, no pun intended. Not only did we get the terrible autism numbers. The New Jersey Assembly Health Committee voted to move A3818. It was reported out on April 5, 2018.

The legislature is going after the religious exemption to mandatory vaccination.

A3818 is one of those special interest bills that your citizens do not want. It contradicts the interests of millions of New Jersey families. It is an abomination that special interests are moving to infringe upon one of our inalienable first freedoms — the Constitutionally-protected right to exercise a religious exemption to mandatory vaccination. It erects legally dubious hurdles that will effectively deny children from religious families access to day care and school; raise suspicions that pit neighbors against each other; and punitively implement so-called religious sincerity trials.

Lest you regard my comments hyperbolic, I share what California’s parents learned the hard way — that this is part of a legislative agenda that is being rolled out state by state. New York State already attempts to adjudicate religious sincerity for the purposes of allowing a religious vaccine exemption in about 18 of its school districts, including New York City. It’s not pretty.

“Herd immunity” doesn’t hold water or justify

Here’s where public health officials like to invoke herd immunity, the idea that very large numbers in a community must be vaccinated in order to resist the spread of disease, and that partly or fully unvaccinated children are putting everyone at risk. It is an example of something that is said so often that people reflexively believe it. This is what you need to know. It’s not correct. And making policies based upon it is a very slippery slope:

Almost all New Jersey families vaccinate their children. Only 2% take an exemption and not all of these children are fully unvaccinated.

Adults never received all the vaccines that today’s children do.

There’s no infectious disease emergency. No government should abridge civil or human rights without compelling state interest. In my book, I analyze mandatory vaccination using a rights impact framework developed by the Harvard School of Public Health. Most people do not think carefully about this. It’s not so cut and dry. Governments like to overreach. We’re talking about what it means to be free.

There is no scientific basis upon which to claim that unvaccinated children spread disease. It’s actually ludicrous. Should you be quarantined, Phil, for spreading meningitis? Of course not; you don’t have meningitis. Should you be quarantined because you might get it? Should you and your children be forced to get every government-indicated vaccine, and how about the hundreds of vaccines in the development pipeline, even though we know they are imperfect and carry serious risks that we don’t fully understand? What if your son has asthma and his doctor says no vaccines, but the state overrides his medical exemption? And what if some or all vaccines happen to violate your religious beliefs? What if you do not want your children injected with vaccines cultured on human lung diploid tissue from a terminated pregnancy (i.e., Merck’s current MMR and chickenpox vaccines)? Should you be forced to inject your children with these vaccines if you want to send them to school? Should the state be in the position to define which religions are legitimate, what religions can and cannot include, and which religious beliefs are bona fide and sincere? And I’m just warming up. Aren’t we starting to upend sacred territory about who we are and what we stand for?

Herd immunity is based on a phenomenon observed after the contraction and resolution of wild-strain infectious diseases in communities. Its original basis had nothing to do with vaccines and, moreover, it has never been proven. Ask James Colgrove, PhD, MPH, Chair and Professor, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health. His book explains that health officials seized upon the hypothesis as a way of convincing the resistant masses to comply — it is one of the “techniques of mass persuasion” and “aggressive salesmanship” to achieve target rates.

Vaccination is not a magical carpet ride to a utopian land of risk-free immunity. It’s time to stop this egregious, special interests-driven, fear-based infringement of our rights.

Health care, education, women, kids, minorities

These issues encompass many of your and Tammy’s key advocacies. I know my words are not falling on deaf ears.

Autism is a serious burden on families. It disproportionately impacts the disadvantaged — women, minorities, and single parents — and especially so because mothers are always on the front lines when it comes to our children’s health, education, and welfare. I hear from and cry with so many of these families. You can’t imagine the pain and alienation. When you’re ready to meet with more autism families, please say the word.

As with other health care decisions, vaccination is intensely personal. It reflects a mix of religious, ethical, philosophical, medical, and other views. The rights to hold our beliefs and make decisions in concordance are sacred and Constitutionally-protected. Without robust exemptions, concerned parents will face the prospects of homeschooling, moving, or vaccinating against their religious tenets. By legislatively weakening or eliminating exemptions, you are guaranteeing that some children whose parents do not want them vaccinated will be catastrophically impacted.

The state, doctors, vaccine makers, and schools may have no financial liability, thanks to Congress and the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. But there is another kind of risk. Through mandatory vaccination with limited or no access to exemptions, government has paved the way for a serious erosion of its moral authority. The damage done to families is real.

It’s simply not feasible or desirable to legislate medicine. Let’s educate parents; help make them aware of the risks and benefits; and empower them to make their decisions.

Governor Corzine honored his promise to me. Health Commissioner Heather Howard gave us this letter. Governor Christie similarly honored the promise he made in this statement he wrote for me during his campaign.

This is a non-partisan issue.

We’re excited about the great things you’ll do

I and other parents contacted you during your gubernatorial campaign and you expressed your support for vaccine informed consent. We’re asking you to keep your promise. We want to rally in support of you and the great things you will do in New Jersey.

This website is for information purposes only. By providing the information contained herein we are not diagnosing, treating, curing, mitigating, or preventing any type of disease or medical condition. Before beginning any type of natural, integrative or conventional treatment regimen, it is advisable to seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.